Parents across income brackets fear worst Paying social welfare recipients the most child benefit will create a disincentive to return to work, according to mother-of-four Niamh Kelly. Mrs Kelly and her husband Paul rely on social welfare since he was made redundant in the last year. Mrs Kelly, from Carlow, said the €738 a month they received in child benefit had been crucial to pay the bills. Under a three-tier system they were still likely to lose part of this, but it would also make it even more difficult to return to work, she said. "It's madness, it would be a huge disincentive to work if your child benefit payments were going to be cut. . . a lot of people would be better staying on social welfare" she said. "We use child benefit to pay the bills, and then if there's any little bit left over we might buy a coat or a pair of shoes for one of the kids." Middle income Carol Haslam said she would be likely to see a substantial chunk taken off her child benefit payments under a new three-tier system. Her family would almost certainly be in the middle band, which is likely to see a significant hit. Her husband works and she is self-employed, but her florist's shop is currently loss-making, so the €332 a month they receive in child benefit is a crucial part of their family income. With two children aged two and four, she has to pay childcare costs during working hours. "I can't even give up the business, because I have commitments such as loans and rent to pay, and you have to keep going in the hope that an upturn will come," she said. "We're not on the poverty line, but we're certainly not flush and if we lost the child benefit it would kill us." The kind of changes proposed didn't take into account the pressures on families whose incomes might sound okay, but who had huge expenses to maintain. "We're already losing the early childcare supplement, and then the Government says 'Oh, you'll get the free preschool year instead', but one of my children is too old for that and one is too young, so we end up worse off," she said. High income Anne McQuillen (not her real name) said she would probably be counted a high earner under the new system, but that doesn't mean she can afford to lose a big chunk of her child benefit payments. With two children aged 11 years and 19 months -- and another on the way -- her monthly childcare bills are set to soar to €2,400. With a mortgage of €3,400 a month taken out at the height of boom and negative equity to boot, Ms McQuillen said she had very little cash at the end of the month. "You have to wonder if it's worth it -- working 50 to 60 hours a week and paying all that money for childcare if they're going to take most of your child benefit away. "Maybe I could work less, and then my children wouldn't be in the creche full-time, but that might mean the creche would have to let people go as well, so nobody's benefiting from that," she said. "It's as if they want to force women out of the workplace." Ms McQuillen said she would be extremely glad if social welfare recipients were protected from the cuts as they were obviously most in need, but it still seemed a blunt instrument to assume that people who earned high wages could take any cuts going. "I thought Mary Hanafin's comment that women shouldn't be penalised unduly because their husbands were high earners was insulting and sexist. I've never been dependent on a man in my life," she said. A tax credit for childcare costs would be an acceptable way of assisting working women, she said. Irish Independent Get Listed on MyChildcare.ie today.... Sign Up Here
Wednesday November 11 2009
